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Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

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Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#31

Post by jeffreyrogers »

whb07 wrote: post #23

I’d like to offer the point of view that if the drones become better and more surgical in their precision, it would reduce civilian casualties. Like it or not the world is full of extremists who would like nothing more than to hurt innocent people. There is no “oh just send the cops and arrest them!” route to take. Shit, just look at the time Osama bin Laden could have been bombed with a tomahawk missile during Clint…

I agree with you partly, and I think often people who are critical of all military actions are not considering the importance of a strong military in deterring large scale conflict.

But I think it's also true that carrying out military operations (even precise ones) in unstable parts of the world helps violent extremists gain support among the broader population and does nothing to help alleviate the instability that gives rise to these extremists in the first place.

When I consider how few deaths there actually are from extremist groups operating in Western countries it makes me wonder if the scale of our response is really appropriate to the severity of the issue, and whether our actions aren't helping to perpetuate the very issues they're intended to address.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#32

Post by dragonwriter »

titzer wrote: post #25
flyinglizard wrote: post #8

I wouldn’t say that developing military hardware necessarily negates the “don’t be evil” principal (especially if the developed articles are dual use, for both military and civilian applications). The western world, our principals and values have prospered for more than half a century in Pax Americana afforded, in a large part, by the prosperous US Military Industrial Complex. I totally get the objection to developin…

Given that the US military has killed nearly 4,000 people with drone strikes in Pakistan over the past decade, a country in which no formal military conflict exists, nor any formal enemy, just vague accusations of terrorist networks (and likely a bunch of political dissidents fed to them by the Pakistani government), I am really wondering where the "Pax" is coming from. Because if you do the math the odds of any give…

> Given that the US military has killed nearly 4,000 people with drone strikes in Pakistan over the past decade, a country in which no formal military conflict exists

Pakistan is a country with which no formal military conflict with the US exists, but it is not one in which no formal military conflict involving the US exists.

The 2001 AUMF is a (ludicrously open ended) conditional exercise of Congress' Constitutional power to declare war, and the parties targeted in Pakistan are parts of groups to which the executive branch has determined that the conditions in that act apply.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#34

Post by Clubber »

oh_sigh wrote: post #19
option2 wrote: post #2

Kudos to those who is ready to stand for their principles. If you are at G and thinking whether you should resign or not, remembers this - the market for AI talent is super hot. You will immediately find lots of great and challenging AI work pushing humanity forward

Hard to tell if those people were planning on leaving anyway, and just wanted to make a splash. How many people quit each week in a company with 90,000 employees? Only a small percent of engineers at google are AI experts. Sure, more people use it, but they probably just make a service call and get some magic results back.

Leaving and making a "splash," on a company as well known as reported on as Google has quite a bit of risk involved, I would think.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#36

Post by dsfyu404ed »

mmjaa wrote: post #17

I once worked for a large industrial group in Europe. The kind that has a bit of a piece of every little pie there is - military, transportation, etc. I was pretty happy working there .. until I got a demo from the 'defence' group. They demonstrated the willingness to push the company's technology into heinous, heinous territory. The kind of thing where a drone would be able to follow a single person in a crowd, and…

I can beat you to death with a hammer or stab you to death with a knife. Should we not build hammers and knives? Should hammers and knives be subject to KYC laws?

Sure you can argue that it's different because those are things the common man can get whereas on the state can afford surveillance dragnets and drones but it wasn't that long ago that only the state could afford computers.

Edit: Apparently I struck a nerve.

Technology transfers between military and civilian application all the time. Propeller technology that helped submarines that are now obsolete stay quiet is fine tuned in a different manner to yield more environmentally friendly watercraft. A drone that can disperse insecticides on only the crops that need it can deliver chemical weapons with some slightly different fine tuning.

An 1984 (or 2018 UK if you like) surveillance and law enforcement system could be used to track down corruption in government, suppressing dissidents, identifying insider trading, identifying human tracking, etc. It all depends on who's using it. (I personally don't trust any government to properly wield that kind of power.)

The technology doesn't care. It's all how you use it.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#37

Post by option_greek »

briffle wrote: post #21
option_greek wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because F16s are developed in USA and used only by US military ? /s

F16's are used in many countries. They were developed in the US, but many, many countries use them (some of our NATO partners since the beginning) Since they were first developed, NATO partners: Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway Other European countries as soon as the mid-80's: Croatia, Greece, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania Middle east since the mid/late 80's: Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, Jo…

My point exactly :) (check the /s = satire tag)

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#38

Post by mc32 »

whb07 wrote: post #23

I’d like to offer the point of view that if the drones become better and more surgical in their precision, it would reduce civilian casualties. Like it or not the world is full of extremists who would like nothing more than to hurt innocent people. There is no “oh just send the cops and arrest them!” route to take. Shit, just look at the time Osama bin Laden could have been bombed with a tomahawk missile during Clint…

The problem is people believe in a fair world and that our foes operate with the same values so that if we accommodate them we’ll be okay and therefore we should not develop means to better wage assymetrical warfare because that’s an unfair advantage. Moreover, what if they are in the right and we are in the wrong, in terms of history.

They fear that this current admin and future adminis may depend on as sec Clinton put it “droning” people we simply disagree with rather than actual military adversaries.

The main question is effectiveness of the system, given some baselines.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#39

Post by mr_rheee »

I've been asked to work for military industry companies before. And I have always declined for ethical reasons.

But as I sit here and think about it, I wonder if its a good thing that a person like myself (that believes I'm on the ethical high-ground) decline these types of jobs.

Someone is going to take the job. Perhaps someone less skilled than myself, perhaps someone less ethical than myself ? What is the result of that ?

As another poster wrote, it's "good" that the targetting gets more precise, meaning less collateral damage.

But to each his own. We need to be able to sleep at night aswell. And that to me also seems like a really good reason to decline.

I'm kind of on the fence about wanting to work in that industry.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#40

Post by tormeh »

mmjaa wrote: post #17

I once worked for a large industrial group in Europe. The kind that has a bit of a piece of every little pie there is - military, transportation, etc. I was pretty happy working there .. until I got a demo from the 'defence' group. They demonstrated the willingness to push the company's technology into heinous, heinous territory. The kind of thing where a drone would be able to follow a single person in a crowd, and…

>and sell them to any country in the world

This is never true. No government will allow its companies (and in this context that's how it's seen) to sell weapons to countries they don't approve of. That said, apparently the defense industry is often irresponsible at best.

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